Grantown to rebuild landmark missing for 250 years

Grantown with Cromdale Hills in the background. Picture: Robert Perry

A SCOTTISH town is set to rebuild a historic landmark that went missing after 1765, and has never been traced since.

Grantown is hoping to celebrate its 250th anniversary by reinstating its iconic 1694 market cross using the salvaged remains of a war memorial from a neighbouring village.

The market cross was erected at the original Grantown at Castle Grant in 1694.

When the current town was established in 1765, the decision was taken to move the cross into the new settlement’s square.

However, at some point in the intervening years the cross was taken down and no record remains of what became of it.

Now the Grantown Society, which is overseeing a major project to celebrate the anniversary, wants to construct a new cross, using stones which used to form the war memorial in nearby Advie.

The original memorial, which sat on the A95, was damaged after being hit by a lorry in 2007, and an exact replica was built at the village’s churchyard.

The original stones were left lying near the church and now the Grantown Society wants to bring them back to life.

Chairman Bill Sadler said it would be done sensitively.

“We’re not going to reuse the base stone with the names and so on, just the two pieces from the top with the spire,” he said. “It seems an appropriate thing to do.”

A planning application has been submitted to Highland Council for the new market cross, which will be named the Cross of Regality, and would be set in Grantown square outside the town’s courthouse if permission is granted.

The society is aiming to have it place for a formal unveiling on June 21, marking the start of a week-long festival to celebrate the significant birthday.

Unusually, the town can pinpoint the exact day building work started, June 28, 1765, when the first stone was laid for a linen factory belonging to Rothiemurchus weaver John Grant.

It cost £40 to build and paved the way for today’s Grantown - a community with a population of more than 2,000 which sits within the Cairngorms National Park.

Mr Sadler said: “The market cross was set up in 1694, but when the new town was founded in 1765 by one of the lairds of Grant, it was moved to the square a year after.

“This was a sign of continuity to mark the old to the new.

“1765 is the last record we have of market cross, nobody is sure what happened to it after that.”

He added the new cross will be named the Cross of Regality to mark the town’s transition in 1694 to a “burgh of regality.”